Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award FAQ

The Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award is an award which gives the power to the people, allowing audiences everywhere to vote for their favourite Canadian working in film, television, or digital media. The winner will receive their award, presented by the award’s 2019 ambassadors and past winners, Elise Bauman and Natasha Negovanlis, at the Canadian Screen Awards: Broadcast Gala, airing live on CBC on Sunday, March 31, 2019 at 8:00 PM (9:00 PM AT/ 9:30 PM NT).

When logging in via email address it is presumed that only existing personal or business email addresses will be used for the purposes of fan voting. Creating new emails for the sole purpose of voting for the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award is considered cheating.

The IP address attached to computers that are logging in with multiple emails can be detected and blocked from further voting.

Voting is open worldwide – there are no geo restrictions. In the Instagram and Facebook voting stages, voting is also worldwide, but from public accounts only.

Employees of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, Smiley Guy Studios, or their affiliated companies, promotional partners, advertising agencies, and/or members of their immediate families (spouses, children, siblings, and parents, regardless of where they live) and/or persons living in the same household as such persons, whether or not related, are ineligible to vote.

The length of each Voting Period can be found on the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award Rules page, but make sure to get your votes in ASAP. Visit audiencechoice.ca to see all the contenders for the current Voting Period and cast your vote.

You can vote 100 times per voting method per day. The voting methods include the voting website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (though in Voting Period 1, you may only vote via our voting website). For full details on how to vote, visit the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award Rules page.

A “day” is defined as the 24 hours beginning at midnight ET each day. Please note that if you are not in the Eastern time zone, your voting period will still be 24 hours long, but will be running from midnight Eastern Time.

You can vote 100 times per voting method per day. The voting methods include the voting website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (though in Voting Period 1, you may only vote via our voting website). For full details on how to vote, visit the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award Rules page.

A “day” is defined as the 24 hours beginning at midnight ET each day. Please note that if you are not in the Eastern Time zone, your voting period will still be 24 hours long, but will be running from midnight Eastern Time.

Yes. Voting totals reset to zero at the start of Voting Period 2. This is so that contenders from the Original 10 and write-in contenders start off on the same footing. This is the only time in the voting when vote totals will reset.

The Academy selected ten stars to kick off the voting for the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award. We based our initial selection on a number of criteria: stars we know have large fan bases and social media followers, and are engaged with their followers; and stars that represent various facets of the screen industry, such as television, film, and digital media.

Make way for new talent! We did not include stars who have previously won the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award (or any of the award’s former iterations or titles), as those stars are ineligible to win. Visit our Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award Hall of Fame to check out our gallery of past winners.

Don’t forget! For the duration of Voting Period 1, (Thursday, February 7, 2019 until Wednesday, February 20, 2019) fans can also vote in their own favourites via our write-in option.

Any stars who have previously won the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award (or any of the award’s former iterations or titles) are ineligible to win. Visit our Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award Hall of Fame to check out our gallery of past winners.

Don’t see your favourite star? For the duration of Voting Period 1, (Thursday, February 7, 2019 until Wednesday, February 20, 2019) fans can also vote in their own favourites via our write-in option.

We are thrilled to have past winners Elise Bauman (2018) and Natasha Negovanlis (2017) as this year’s ambassadors for the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award. The ambassadors will present the 2019 winner with their award at the Canadian Screen Awards: Broadcast Gala, airing live on CBC on Sunday, March 31, 2019 at 8:00 PM (9:00 PM AT/ 9:30 PM NT).

The Canadian Screen Awards: Broadcast Gala is our only televised gala, during which the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award final winner will be awarded. It will air live on CBC, Sunday, March 31, 2019 at 8:00 PM (9:00 PM AT/ 9:30 PM NT).

When logging in via email address it is presumed that only existing personal or business email addresses will be used for the purposes of fan voting. Creating new emails for the sole purpose of voting for the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award is considered cheating.

The IP address attached to computers that are logging in with multiple emails can be detected and blocked from further voting.

By setting a limit of 100 votes per day, we are safeguarding against bots. This year, we are also using CAPTCHA technology as a way to further fend off bots from casting votes.

In order to prevent cheating, we are also monitoring votes via IP addresses and have the ability to completely block an IP address from voting for the remainder of the campaign or voting period. We can also invalidate votes previously made by users who have created multiple emails for the sole purpose of voting for the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award.

By logging in to place a vote in the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Awards, the user agrees to play fair. The Canadian Academy holds the right to invalidate votes and to block IP addresses where evidence of foul play has been detected.